Karl Dorrell looks ahead to Stanford road trip, provides injury report

Karl Dorrell fielded questions from reporters for the final time on Wednesday ahead of this Saturday's showdown on the road at Stanford.

Dorrell gave an injury report, discussed facing the Cardinal and specifically, addressed concerns about hitting the road for the first time this season in the COVID era.

*Shenault served a one-game suspension imposed by Dorrell and did not play vs. UCLA. Nixon is nursing an injury; his status for Stanford is unclear right now.

"(Shenault has) done his suspension and now he's ready to play so he's kind of back in the fold and hopefully we'll get him going in our rotation."

"I think with KD we're still — he practiced today, and he looked good in the things that I've seen him do. We are still treating him day to day. We want to make sure that you know he doesn't have any setbacks or anything from what's happened for him with his injury. He's making good progress so far this week right now."

"There's an extra layer of testing that I think is being required from Santa Clara and the ordinance there in the county, but we're in really good health right now. You're crossing your fingers every day. You come through and you have your testing in the morning, prior to practicing — all of those testing measurements have been very, very good for us to this point and, so we're just hopeful that we can stay that course and be able to bring our team out there and compete for another win."

"That's the biggest challenge. That's the part that I've been mentioning to all the reporters is that instead of just keeping your mind on the football aspect of things, you're also concerned about potential depth issues in case something happens and, and it's just an extra layer of thinking that you have to really think about as you get ready for a game.”

"Literally, every morning before we have our meetings, I'm waiting for the all clear signal from our trading room, saying that everybody's clear and ready to go. We've been really fortunate. Our guys have done a great job of taking care of themselves and doing the right things when they're not here in our facility, in their in their dorm or in their apartment so I think they're doing a nice job of really taking care of themselves."

"It's not been an issue so far, knock on wood. We're just hopeful that we can continue this streak. We need all of our players. We're not we're not deep in a lot of areas so you know we don't want to have an issue or something or someone that maybe it comes down with (COVID)."

"He's done a really good job. He played some in the game (against UCLA) when Colby (Pursell) went down and he played well. Josh is ready. He's getting most of the snaps this week and getting himself ready to play. My philosophy with every position on this team — quarterback, kickers, everything — is that, we're in a next man up philosophy. We expect our guys there that are on second team to play just as well as the guys that are on first name, and not skip a beat and still be able to be productive with what we're asking them to do. (Jynes) is having a good week so far. He's excited about what's in front of them, he's eager to compete so I would say so far, so good."

"Antonio, he's trying to get all his medical data (and) information done right now and that's something that I'm still at this point in time, I don't know what those results are, so he's working through that. I think (he’s in) a category that is not anything from a football standpoint (where) we’re restricted, we're trying to get him healthy and get clearance from a medical standpoint for him to move forward on the next step."

"He's going through that right now but I still don't have any information as to where the final issues are with that if there's anything that's been resolved yet."

"Chris was a little dinged up as you guys know, and he's doubtful for the game. Like I mentioned earlier — it’s next man up, period. A lot of our guys on second team get just as many reps as our first team. They know that it's not just because of an injury. It might be (that) so and so came down and got tested positive with the virus. All of a sudden, who steps up and replaces that particular player? It's a similar circumstance, even though this is dealing with an injury from Chris and Isaiah (Lewis), getting a chance to get more playing time."

"We kind of deal with it that way. We have a lot of confidence in our team and a lot of confidence in our players. The ones that are on the second team level right now, they know that they have to study and prepare as if they're the starter, because at any point in time, in the course of a week, an injury can happen COVID can happen — anything. We need our second team to be ready for that opportunity to come for themselves and so far they've passed every test when something like this has occurred.”